


saltkin

by vaec (aosc)



Series: If You Wait [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2425484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/vaec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with Naruto. It will end, with Naruto. Sasuke knows this, an immeasurable truth, held flush to his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	saltkin

* * *

 

_it crashed into a thicket of cross-hatching._  
 _somewhere a knight rode on, sure_  
 _death was an old man on foot_  
 _waving an hourglass_  
 _easily outrun_

debora greger

 

* * *

 

It begins with Naruto. It will end, with Naruto. Sasuke knows this, an immeasurable truth, held flush to his heart.

 

He hasn't kept track, but he knows that if he wanted to, he could count back the days since they last crossed paths. It isn't hard. Days, months -- years. Cycles keep them endlessly rotating about each other, never in the same orbit but nonetheless in arms' proximity. Sometimes, traveling between borders and contracts, Karin's eyes glaze, and she will look to Sasuke seeking his gaze. She twitches, at once bereft of breath, all the same wary. She fears the leak of the Kyuubi's chakra, he knows, but marvels at Naruto's light ( _it's difficult not to_ ). And then he knows, urging them around the village skirting the borders of Mist; never looking over his shoulder and ignoring the disgust in Suigetsu's sigh.

 

They've done this for years, mapping the country, working for coin and shelter via loose contracts with villages who have nothing concrete to tie with Konoha. Jūgo never has anything to say about it, a faithful shadow hovering just below Sasuke's shoulder and turning after his decisions. Karin occasionally prods, asking him, clipped voice, dagger sharp questions which aim at all his vitals. He never dignifies them with a response. Suigetsu spits at the ground, worrying his foot in the dirt of the road, and talks about _what if I went after him, what'd you do, Sasuke? Huh?_

 

He doesn't answer that either. Mostly because he's never given much thought to the coincidental nicks of fate which could see Naruto die by a hand that isn't Sasuke's own. By which Naruto exists outside of the boundaries Sasuke once set up for them. By those boundaries, Naruto breathes by the same principles Sasuke does -- because Sasuke allows it to be so. That someone act outside of them, someone who isn't affected by them, is a thought he hasn't considered. And so he lets it fester on Taka, this wound that he is somehow responsible for creating but also for closing. It's shaped like Naruto, but Sasuke never sees him poke enough in it to reopen the stitches and feel the raw flesh -- and reality, of it. Or so he thinks, up until the battle with Kaguya.

 

At some point after the end of the world that never came to be, digging deep into Iwa on a government contract with supplies running low, it reopens on its own. An argument at stalemate sees Suigetsu backing Sasuke up against the chafing brick of an old mill with the dantō pressed intimately against the base of his throat, the jut of his Adam's apple scraping the blade and drawing blood when he swallows. Jūgo lunges for them, but Sasuke gives Karin one look, raising his chin haughtily, and she snaps out to reign him in. "Don't," she hisses. "Let them at it."

 

"The fuck are you so afraid of, Uchiha?" Suigetsu drawls, drawing up close to Sasuke's face. "That Konoha boy ain't no match for you." The Mist-nin rubs the blade into his skin, massaging until the wound opens further. Sasuke remains impassive, letting the bait pass, the clench of his jaw soften. A minute trickles into the distance. Two. Blood. Then Suigetsu makes a dismissive noise at the back of his throat and pushes away, making a show of dusting off his knees and torso and returns the large sword to hook into place across his back. Karin slackens her hold on Jūgo's sleeve until he can move away without hindrance, and her fingers slide from his upper arm like water. Sasuke wipes the blood from his throat on the back of his hand, he says nothing. Neither of them do, and the tension rolls like thunder.

 

It's odd. He spends a lot of time retroactively running from the inevitable. Why he's running, he's not particularly sure of. So after a while, he stops.

 

He parts with Taka at the scene of what was previously Kannabi Bridge. By the crumbles of old rock and concrete, the red ornate paint bleached by the sun and rain. He doesn't need to say anything, it's as if it colors the air, as if he is completely transparent. Jūgo places a large hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and he feels the ridges and scar tissue and this skin that has humbly followed him for years now, clasp the bone of his shoulder joint and squeeze. He doesn't talk, because if anything, Jūgo takes no pride in words lest they be necessary. Sasuke will always appreciate him for this.

 

Karin holds his eyes, maybe even his breath, for a moment. She won't thank him, and she won't follow him. A far cry from the girl he plucked from Orochimaru's prison guard, she's grown into the role that is but her own and no one else's. He is surprised to feel that he might miss her, the loss of a familiar presence which will make him halfway turn at times, searching for it with twitching fingers.

 

"This isn't goodbye," she says, as if she is that sage. As though the span of time is to her intimately familiar, the past a present known, Sasuke's future carved in marble.

 

"Perhaps not," he replies. Karin smiles, and he doesn't know a reply to that.

 

"Don't die!" calls Suigetsu, sprawled on a large boulder, polishing his leather equipment with deer fat. He grins, sharp and sharklike. "I mean, I get to kill you if that Jinchūriki can't, 's all I'm saying."

 

Sasuke walks, prepared to never again see them.

 

* * *

 

There are three things that Sasuke will never forget. They are imprinted in him, his soul -- if there ever was one, carved and shaped precisely to accommodate these memories. It is not so much about who he was born to be, as who he was molded to become. It is by these three events that he is.

 

Sasuke is eight years old, and he sees the spatter of blood streaking Itachi's cheek and knows that it belongs to any of his direct relatives. He sees his brother bent over their parents, and there is only red and black. He has replayed this particular scene, and the aftermath, ever since Itachi died. It isn't directly linked to his brother's death, and the memories no longer hold a tinge of the murderous intent that they once did -- Sasuke simply decided that there were obstacles, rooted in him, that he had yet to overcome. To reforge something requires the gathering -- the collection, of all the pieces.

 

He is thirteen, and through the whirlpool of pain and the scorch of the cursed seal and the _pain_ , Sasuke registers his surroundings. They have blown out a small portion of the valley, a tiny crater of mud and rock, and despite the rain gravity won't realign itself so that water comes pooling down on them from the stream once more. Sasuke feels akin to a puppet, one quivering leg pushing forth perfectly, one to lean on for balance. His right hand limp. Arranged. His left --

 

He doesn't anymore register sickness at the thought of how it felt to have shoved the tips of his fingers through Naruto's chest. The cramp of muscle and skin, the rivulets of blood through to the damaged lung. Filling up with what is too sluggish and thick to breathe. The deafening pump of Naruto's heart, desperate, fighting. It reverberates through him; steady, otherworldly. Then nothing. He stands above looking down below, onto the circular beam of gentle sunlight which has carved its way through the rain to just this once illuminate Naruto into this being Sasuke has felt on his insides just now.

 

He leaves, and he is prepared to never again see Naruto.

 

Then Itachi dies. He is sixteen, and for a while, Sasuke is absolutely powerless. He is a shell, hollow to rap your knuckles against; without purpose. However, looking at this in hindsight, at what comes next: at this point Sasuke isn't terribly taken by surprise when the Sage of the Six Paths reveals that they are simply blood passed down, him and Naruto -- brothers, forever. Somewhere, in a small part of himself which he has stored securely -- the box of Pandora, he takes moderate comfort in this. He has gone through fire, and hell, and it has taken him to this conclusion. He is bigger than the massacre of his clan, of Danzō's murder. Of Konoha. He -- they, are meant for this. It is inevitable, as the ebb and flow of the ocean. It's timeless, ageless, that Sasuke will always end with Naruto.

 

Somehow, it takes him three additional years to face this in the flesh, as in opposition to the tiny part of his mind that still entertains thoughts of what has already come to pass.

 

* * *

 

Now, presently, Naruto steps forth from the small formation squad he leads: Fox, Hound, Sparrow. The only sign of him having fought through obstacle to find Sasuke ( _and doesn't he always_ ) is this: a thin wrap of gauze is strapped above the crook of his elbow and the white is bled with red, and the fox mask he wears is chipped at the chin. Sasuke has seen him in politics, or as a jounin, a three man team of his own. But never ANBU. He hums. The sky is a thick stretch of black, freckled with stars, and in a knife sliver of moonlight they are beginning the battle of their end as Naruto tips the mask to rest flat on his head.

 

It's as prophetic as it comes, and Sasuke revels in the orange spark in Naruto's eyes when he meets them.

 

"Did you really feel the need to bring backup?" Sasuke scans the group. "Do you realize that this is your end then?"

 

Naruto smiles. It's ruthless, daring, the equivalent of an impossibly sharp object pointed just below his breast bone. It's quivering with withheld power. "I figured I needed some help carrying you and your sizable ego back home, asshole." Then he charges, a flash of black and days foregone.

 

There has passed three years, three months, and twenty one days. Sasuke feels his heart kick at his ribs, alive and warm.

 

* * *

 

Naruto is a storm, Sasuke's Chidori but the fork of lightning. The river snaking through the Valley of the End has been blown astray, the rain has hardened, and Sasuke wipes blood from his eyelid. It is judgement and punishment, the crime and the sentencing. But Naruto is everything, and Sasuke fights because he has to rival that.

 

The Rasengan a dizzying lecture in pain and its harsh glow enlightens the bruises in Naruto's face. He is a force, and Sasuke is taken aback, though he never allows it to cross his face. And his rival, this stark picture of mat rye hair and hooded blue eyes and the curl of the nine tailed fox protectively around his back, just grins. His nails are purple and some are missing from catching himself in the riverbed, though the water washes away the blood and left remains only starch flesh, healing steadily. And despite it all, he grins. Sasuke is bent to support his weight on both palms and feet. He has two ribs dipping into a lung, a cut below his left eyebrow bleeding thickly into his lashes, and the scales of Susanoo biting into his raw fingertips. He smiles, somewhat, but never as the returning of a gesture. "Is not giving up all you can do, dead last?"

 

The fox growls, a rumbling which in its original form would cause tremors in the earth. As it is, the size of three men, but barely more, the sound is partially drowned out by the thunder. "This pup thinks he's warranted the right to speak, yet is the one doubled over," it says, and fans its tails. Naruto wipes water, or is it blood, from the corner of his mouth. "He's all talk," he says, the corner of his mouth curling. "He's always been talk."

 

Sasuke should brush it off. After all these years, the abusing of his wounds until they have dulled, dissipated and left behind only the faint silver trace of a scar he should. But there are many things he should be doing, and perhaps, right now dying is supposed to be one of them.

 

"You seem to not get it," he snaps. Susanoo's wings shudder, and it takes a heavy step forward. "We're bound to this. Strung up, coordinated to die. Don't you _get it_? Neither of us will triumph."

 

Sasuke is many things, but he isn't talk. He measures his words up to what of his actions can be contained within them. Then perhaps he will say something, but he will nonetheless _do_. He has always triumphed on being a man of action, never a cup overflowing with words, always living up to expectation. And today, he's come onto this site that holds such historical significance for the both of them with the mindset of someone who has accepted the fate that is dying. 

 

"You fucking asshole," Naruto says, incredulous. "You've come here to die."

 

"So have you," Sasuke points out. He frowns.

 

Naruto is quiet for some time, searching Sasuke -- assessing him from torn jacket and bleeding arms to dripping boots. Then he does this thing Naruto should trademark, this middle mark between talking and shouting. "By all the gods and deities in this world, Sasuke, have some fucking _dignity,_ " he says, hands waving about for emphasis. "You walk to the ends of the earth and then some to kill your brother, then temporarily come back to fight with me when we thought the world was beyond saving, as though you can actually _do that_. And then you disappear again, as though you can just _do that_ , only to show up here three years later in some bullshit act of melodrama to die a glorified death because of some _prophecy_?"

 

The stack of cards, the imitation of a house, collapses. The fox has laid down, if Sasuke hadn't been a potent victim of the absurd already, and its charcoal eyes stare at him with mirth. Its lip curls. "It's a prophecy, you moron," Sasuke tries, because what else is he supposed to say? "No matter how much you fight -- it won't change the outcome." His eyes are tearing with pain; someone is drilling a screw into the soft skin just below his temple, and Susanoo flickers ominously under his feet. Opposite, the fox yawns, as true to the touch as the rain. He figures it's just like Naruto, to befriend a deity more powerful than any other in this world, and win because of _trust_. Susanoo is a production of the Mangekyou, and though real to the touch at completion, it is naught but a trick at the end of the day. It is a tool, and it disgusts Sasuke that his strength seemingly cannot overcome Naruto's _diplomacy_. Naruto's fucking _love_ , a horizon, endlessly stretching around the world to encompass Sasuke at wherever he happens to be.

 

His eyes spin, whirling slowly, and he feels tired. It has nothing to do with fatigue. He isn't bodily  _tired_ , could fight Naruto for hours, despite his current disadvantage. But the drive which has seen him overcome every single obstacle presented, ever, smokes out. A breath, the wind, and then he blinks and the passing moment between when he blinks, and the next time he does, the Sharingan melts away. Susanoo's wings flap, flicker -- an illusion, and Sasuke tumbles to the ground.

 

The sky doesn't open up, the rain omnipresent and cold, and he just lays. Shuts his eyes, and allows his mind to become one with his surroundings. He isn't a sensory type, but he can reach out and sense the pulse, dull but thick, travel through the earth directly below him. Through the sand, and the river, and Naruto who comes running towards him. Sasuke refuses him eye contact, because he hasn't won -- it's Sasuke's choice, he doesn't give in because Naruto says he should. He's just out of options, of escape routes, perhaps. He always knows, a strategist at heart. He doesn't know, and with it his limbs turn to lead. But this time, he allows it to be so.

 

It's supposed to end with Naruto. Sasuke is supposed to end, because within the boundaries he once put up, he has now allowed for it to happen.

 

Naruto's breath is warm on his face, and his fingers are raw on Sasuke's skin, skimming a patch of bruise on his cheek. "You're a bigger idiot than me, if you think I'm letting a prophecy stand in the way of getting you home."

 

Sasuke rises slowly, still thick limbed and somewhat dazed. "Never a bigger idiot than you, dead last. That seems impossible."

 

Naruto chuckles. He folds himself in underneath Sasuke's left arm, and takes half of the weight off a swollen ankle that he could just ignore, but doesn't, just this once. Naruto's eyes are in a semi-state of heterochromia, one impossibly blue, and the other one draining slowly of dull golden. Sasuke's breath rattles in his throat, his fingers twitch in the curl he's made of Naruto's flak jacket. They stand. One. Two. Sasuke breathes out. The gold in his eyes has drained, the faint glow of Sage Mode curls into the air, and Naruto's skin retains only the reflection of Sasuke in the water dripping down his chin.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is that one-shot tackling mostly canon. personally, kishimoto is in some deep shit, the ending is ridiculously long, ridiculously plotted, ridiculously everything. but i wanted to try my hand at it. one-dimensional sasuke and kaguya and the whole gist. obvious spoilers up until the end. like, the real end. who would've thought. unbeta'd. this is new writing as opposed to old reworks, and i'm feeling rusty and somewhat experimental.


End file.
